The combination of an upper mattress supported on a lower base forms a typical bedding apparatus in common use. The upper mattress can be of any type, composition or configuration to provide the necessary comfort and secondary support for the user. The lower base is used to elevate the mattress off the ground and to provide ventilation, but importantly to also provide controlled macro support for the upper mattress.
Macro support is important to give the mattress the correct and optimal overall support to suit the user's physique and orthopaedic requirements. The fine tuning or micro support of a bed is generally confined to the upper mattress which can be supplied in a range of hardnesses to suit the user. In addition, the upper mattress can be tailored to suit individual requirements with the provision of hybrid components to suit dual occupancy.
The correct and careful selection and adjustment of both the macro and micro support of a mattress is vital to achieve the optimal bedding support to suit the variety of user requirements which vary with the different physical and medical requirements of each individual.
To date, the ability of a bed base to provide adequate macro support has been limited by the crude systems available. Currently available base systems include innerspring bases and platform bases using transverse slats. While innerspring bases give the user an impression of “comfort” by feeling soft, this system provides minimal controlled macro support and results in a “bouncy feel” rather than adequate overall support for an upper mattress.
Platform bases also provide macro support but have limited adjustment potential even with the incorporation of double slats and firmness adjusters which allow individual slats to be adjusted to provide various degrees of flex over the length of the slat. Such systems do little to provide the upper mattress with the necessary macro support to give the user's body optimal orthopaedic support. Double slats may provide variable flex giving rise to differential support but such slats only allow a deflection difference of up to about 15 mm over a standard slat when under load. Adult human bodies may have shape differences between the shoulders and waist of up to perhaps 80 mm. Accordingly, the potential deflection compensation available from double slats is quite insufficient to cater for such variations in the end user. Furthermore, double slats do not provide an individual height adjustment for the slats but only an individual flex adjustment.
In order to provide a further level of macro adjustment, height adjustment of individual slats in a platform base would provide clear advantages. Whilst some prior art devices are known which provide slating adjustment for bed bases incorporating individual transverse slats, none of the known prior art devices provide a ready means of adjusting individual slats in a quantitative and calibrated manner so as to allow the user or a medical adviser a satisfactory means of making suitable adjustment to confidently meet an individual's particular requirements.
If such individual height adjustment could be provided and could be operated external to the bed base, a means of ready and convenient alteration of a bed's macro support would be achieved.